Will Non-Profits Take Over The World? (It Increasingly Looks That Way)

“In the United States, the number of nonprofit organizations grew by approximately 25 percent between 2001 and 2011, from 1.3 million to 1.6 million, compared with profit-making enterprises, which grew by a mere one-half of 1 percent. In the United States, Canada and Britain, employment in the nonprofit sector currently exceeds 10 percent of the work force.”

Opera Australia’s Gleefully Controversial Chief

Since becoming the national company’s artistic director in 2009, Lyndon Terracini “has honed his talent for generating headlines, Twitter storms and Facebook furores. He has made contentious declarations about everything from obese opera singers doing love scenes (‘It’s obscene’); to ‘the sense of patrician entitlement’ of some opera insiders; to the ‘prehistoric’ union quota that limits the number of overseas singers who can perform with OA.”

The Limits of Brain-Fitness Programs

“It seems that playing computer games designed to work your powers of perception, memory and attention can lead to significant and lasting improvement in one’s ability to play those very games. But the benefits don’t transfer. You may perform the relevant tasks like a 20-year-old, but you’ll still have the mind of a 60-year-old.”

The Art Market As Hedge Fund

Pity the poor artist who assumes a connection between price and the quality of her work. It is nothing of the sort; more often it is a case of “taking positions, using leverage, and weighing risk and reward more aggressively,” as one art world insider interpreted Daniel Loeb’s plan for holding Sotheby’s feet to the fire.